Mark Chen

About Me

I'm an undergraduate student at Columbia Engineering anticipated to graduate in May 2026, majoring in theoretical computer science (TCS), with some exposures to math and physics (please see courseworks).

I'm open-minded and broadly interested in anything theory-related. Currently, I'm thinking about lower bounds of multi-party quantum communications, RL when agents hide certain information, and Boolean functions. My main learning objectives right now are quantum complexity, differential privacy, information theory, and coding theory. Here are some of my other non-academic interests.

Outside of theory, I also like engineering applications of computer science. I have interned at Google as a software engineering intern since first-year in college (see work experience for details). I've also worked on several projects with start-ups over the years.

My email is yc3879-at-columbia-dot-edu. I also go by Yang (阳, yáng) Chen (陈, chén).

Interests

I spent two summers in high school painting and drawing. I still do casual drawings from time to time :). I also really like playing basketball and tennis from time to time, though these have been hard since I came to New York... I enjoy walking and getting boba.

My great grandfather was a Chinese history scholar whom I spent a lot of time with before high school. As a scholar, he was a target of the "Laogai" for decades. I always remember him as the knowledgeable and positive man who couldn't stop talking about history in front his wall of books printed from his scholarly days in 1930s/40s, survived by his hiding and protection. This memory of him not only lived on in my habit of reading wikipedia pages about Chinese history all the time, but also in my pursuit of theory. For trivia, I can match most Gregorian years to their corresponding Chinese era names.

For various reasons, I've moved around a lot through my life (mostly by myself other than when I go home). Originally from Ningbo, China, I've lived in, studied and/or worked at the following places for extended time periods:

In China: Ningbo (where I grew up), Shanghai (where my mom's family is), Beijing (for most of my gap year in 2020-21).

In the States: Machester / Auburn, New Hampshire (for one year of middle school); Bloomfield Hills, Michigan (for high school); New York City, New York (for college); San Francisco Bay Area (for three summers at Google).

I like languages. I'm fluent in English and Mandarin, took Latin to the AP level, and am currently trying to learn French and Russian.